Super rich 3

(cont'd from this post)

Sultan Bolkiah is far from the richest person on earth. In fact, according to the Forbes list of global billionaires, #10 on the list is three times richer. (But, of course, the sultan takes the prize for collecting luxury cars.)

The top four on the list made their fortunes in the American technology sector. After Elon Musk comes Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), and Larry Ellison (Oracle). The U.S. has the most billionaires, China is next, followed by India with its own ~200 billionaires.

A minority inherited the money, but about two thirds of them created their own fortunes. Factors like the value of their investments and businesses are considered when Forbes figures out their net worth, and one of the investigators explains it below.

from Forbes

Super rich 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Sultan Bolkiah has some expensive hobbies. His 200 polo ponies are comfortable in their air-conditioned stables, and then there are cars . . a lot of cars.

His private collection of 7,000 luxury cars is the biggest in the world, and worth $5 billion. About 600 are Rolls-Royces, 450 are Ferraris, and 380 are Bentleys. For his daughter's wedding in 2007, he acquired a custom "gold coated" Rolls-Royce. In fact, it sounds like several are designed or coated with gold.

Included among his aircraft is a Boeing 747-400, and it's gold plated too. 

Apparently his $30 billion of personal wealth is enough to indulge all this extreme extravagance, but some people have even more money than the sultan. The richest man in the world (who created his wealth) has way more money. But he doesn't seem to have the same desires. He lives in a $50k home in Texas.

from The Economic Times

Grounds

As a coffee drinker, I like to discover that there's something good about drinking it (put "coffee" in the search bar to see those things). But I never saw this coming - the grounds may be economically valuable.

Charred coffee grounds, when added to concrete, make it 30% stronger, according to researchers in Australia.

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Usually they're left in landfills to emit greenhouse gases. Using them in concrete will ease the global demand on sand for construction. If this discovery is used, it will benefit the environment. 

A previously (nearly) useless substance now valuable? That demonstrates the tremendous economic value of innovation. Knowledge/ideas/imagination create wealth.

from Science Alert

Enough 4

Follow-up to this post

There's a page for "myth of superabundance" on Wikipedia, but it doesn't refer to the book Super Abundance. It's not even the same concept. It's a myth saying that we will never run out any resource, no matter how reckless we are in using it--resources like trees, water, animal species, minerals. Nobody should be careless in the management of earth's resources.

What the book does say is that, over the ages, resources and solutions have kept pace with growing populations - and surpassed them. Instead of famine and lack, highly increased populations have food and enough resources for an elevated living standard.

As Steven Pinker says: “People . . depend on ideas—formulas, algorithms, knowledge—which allow stuff, useless by itself, to satisfy our wants. In this lucid and illuminating book, Tupy and Pooley lucidly use this insight to explain a fact that, surprisingly, surprises people: over the centuries, our increasing knowledge has made more stuff available to us.”

As Michael Shermer says: “In a tsunami of bad news . . emerges Superabundance, a data-fueled corrective to the doom and gloom the media daily heaps upon us. Tupy and Pooley have done the world a service with this fact-filled reminder of how good our lives are compared to ages past, and how much more human flourishing is in store if we unleash human innovation.”

from Super Abundance

Enough 3

(cont'd from last Friday's post)

How poor were people in the past, compared to our standard of living today? Dr. Jordan Peterson says that it's very hard for today's students to picture it. Economist and co-author of Superabundance, Dr. Gale Pooley agrees and likes to use the example of sugar with his students:

For the same amount of time that an average worker would work to buy one pound of sugar in 1850, how many pounds of sugar would that labor buy today? His students suggest 2-4 pounds. But actually that work time today would buy 227 pounds!

from Discovery

Enough 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

His new book, Superabundance, is a counter-narrative to a commonly held impression:

"Generations of people have been taught that population growth makes resources scarcer. In 2021, for example, one widely publicized report argued, “The world's rapidly growing population is consuming the planet's natural resources at an alarming rate . . . the world currently needs 1.6 Earths to satisfy the demand for natural resources . . . [a figure that] could rise to 2 planets by 2030.” But is that true?"

Tupy and his co-author Gale Pooley analyzed centuries of the prices of goods, compared to how long people of the time had to work for them. They found that the abundance of resources - over history - grew faster than the population grew. On average, the human person produces more value than he/she consumes. Amazing, counterintuitive.

Why is this? Human ingenuity. It's true that unproductive people only consume (by choice or inability) but it's also true that many people are extremely productive. The Christian view of humanity says that our Creator designed us with the ability - if we're free - to creatively solve problems.

Enough

It was predicted long ago that the earth would run out of resources to support rising populations. Famine would kill hundreds of millions and take us back to bare subsistence.

But what actually happened is that the number of humans on earth grew by billions since then, and there is food to feed them all. Not only that, but we have enough resources to live at a much higher standard of living than ever.

Marian Tupy of Human Progress says "we'll have enough" for the future.

Resources

Labor Day is coming up next Monday in the U.S. Its purpose is to recognize the achievements of our nation's workers. 

We who labor are not only consumers, but creators of value. We take our planet's natural resources and apply our mental and physical work to them. We create things to satisfy the many needs and wants of society, our neighbors and families. 

2021 Re-post:

It's an idea that really needs to die out: that human beings are nothing more than mouths to feed, just consumers of resources. Not so. Human beings create material wealth when they're free to dream and solve problems.

In spite of being proven wrong, the idea comes up every now and then. If I may refer just once more to the Marvel movies . . Thanos killed half of all life in "Avengers: Infinity War" so that the other half could get all the universe's resources and live better. Bad and wrong on every count.

Millionaire+

"Millionaire" doesn't mean as much as it used to. Inflation over the decades has lowered the purchasing power of a dollar, so a million dollars today doesn't buy what it used to. But, per Chris Hogan in yesterday's video, it still sounds magical.

He exploded four myths with the results from his own research (which are supported by statistics at this website):

• Most millionaires didn't inherit their money 
• Most were not extreme lucky
• Most didn't get a fancy education
• Most don't have high-paying jobs

What made them extraordinary? Nothing. They just chose to do what it takes to make that kind of money. It did not necessarily include becoming a selfish jerk, but just mostly a plan along with self discipline and delayed gratification.

Chris Hogan's friend, Dave Ramsey, has made a business out of teaching the financial habits that end debt and build wealth. Check out his plans at his website.

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Millionaire

Did America's eleven million millionaires inherit their money from their parents? Or did they make their money in shameful ways? The system is rigged to prevent the rest of us from getting rich, right?

Chris Hogan did a study to find out whether these myths are actually true.

Ramaswamy 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Vivek Ramaswamy grew up in the state of Ohio, the son of immigrants from India. He graduated from high school as class valedictorian in 2003, with achievements in tennis and in piano. He then earned a degree in biology summa cum laude from Harvard, and later a law degree from Yale. Clearly, this is a gifted individual.

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Biology training in college helped qualify him to manage the biotech portfolio at QVT Financial, where he worked from 2007 to 2014. He started his own biotech companies and Forbes put him on their cover in 2015. They ran a story on him in 2016 when, at the age of 31, he took his second biotechnology company public.

Drug companies pursue the making and testing of particular drug products, depending on research which predicts that the drugs will be successful - that is, that they will be safe, effective on a real problem, and can be profitably manufactured.

Ramaswamy's distinctive contribution has been his talent to pick up good drug ideas that were dropped by other drug manufacturers - and pursue them until they are successful by the above standards. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Pays $8+ billion

Is Elon Musk living on the charity of average taxpayers? Certainly not. His intense work ethic, risk tolerance, intelligence and good ideas earned his wealth for him. But an American senator says he's "freeloading."

Actually, it's sort of hard to believe she made that ridiculous claim . . because this year he will pay the government over $8 billion dollars in taxes, a number too big for most of us to even imagine. That contrasts with her income ($174,000/year) which is taken entirely from taxpayers. He pays taxes, she receives taxes.

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His companies provide jobs and income to over one-hundred-thousand taxpaying employees.

His tax bill is complicated, for sure, and apparently he paid none in 2018. But the senator's claim is short on facts and misleading.

Envious people are bothered at seeing others do well even when it does them no harm. This might be envy, coming from an unreliable political partisan. 

from Forbes

Not scarcity 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

It's an idea that really needs to die out, that human populations are nothing more than mouths to feed, just consumers of resources. Not so. Human beings create material wealth when they're free to dream and solve problems.

In spite of being proven wrong, the idea comes up every now and then. If I may refer just once more to the Marvel movies . . Thanos killed half of all life in "Avengers: Infinity War" so that the other half could get all the universe's resources and live better. Bad and wrong on every count.

Not scarcity

(cont'd from last Thursday's post)

Does it make sense that the world's population is better off now with 8 billion people than it was in 1970 with about 4 billion? Not according to Paul Ehrlich's confident prediction. Back then, he said it was already too late to stop hundreds of millions from starving, that humanity was doomed for sure.

But food has been available all this time, and is way more abundant now. New technology improved food production, made communication between people almost effortless, radically reduced the time and effort necessary to take care of human needs, and gave us near-miraculous health care.

Over all, humans gradually raised global standards of living by applying their problem-solving intelligence to new knowledge and discovery. The speed of that process far exceeded the rate of population growth.

In some cases, a person of genius in a society free enough to try his/her ideas had a positive effect on a phenomenal scale.

from Mind Matters

(cont'd tomorrow)

Black inventor

 Elijah McCoy's name became synonymous with unmatched quality. Here's some highlights to his productive life.

Creativity 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

People add their ideas/talents/virtues to the resources they have access to. They create progress, they create value. Here is an inspiring man who raised the GNP of Bangladesh:

"Can cell phones fight poverty better than aid? Entrepreneur Iqbal Quadir would say so. He believes the secret lies behind technology and innovation."

Mr. Quadir got the insight that connectivity among the poor of his native country would increase their wealth. Why? It's not obvious at first, so he tells a story. 

One day in Bangladesh, he walked ten miles to get medicine for his family, only to find that the medicine man was gone. So he walked ten miles back home, an all-day round trip. His entire day was a waste of time and energy which could have been invested in productive work. So now it's obvious - a phone would have enabled him to make that trip when the medicine was available. 

His insight led him to start a phone company to serve the poor of Bangladesh. "This one company…is raising the GNP of the country much more than the aid this country receives."

Creativity

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Like Michelangelo's chunk of marble, oil and sand had no value to people - until people applied their imagination, effort, resources, aesthetic sensibility, engineering, craftsmanship, cooperation, and problem-solving skills to them.  Then there was value. 

People create value/wealth for themselves and their community. They take the resources they have available and apply their non-material knowledge and talent. 

Author J.R.R. Tolkien says, ". . we make in our measure . . because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker."  J. R. R. TOLKIEN, On Fairy-Stories

So we are able to create . . because we are created . . by our Creator . . to be like Him.

Create wealth

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

We know art is creative.  But have you ever thought about the creation of wealth?  Wealth not just for one individual, but wealth as life-improvement spread throughout a community or nation of people.

"Think about oil for a minute.  For thousands of years, oil was a nuisance - an insoluble mess to be scrubbed from your feet if you were unlucky enough to step in it.  Then one day someone had the bright idea of burning it to provide energy.  Suddenly oil was a resource, not a nuisance.  Soon dark streets could be lit, homes heated, cars driven.  The oil hadn't changed.  But [human] ingenuity had made this formerly useless substance into something we call "black gold."  Can you imagine the world without it?

"Now let's examine sand.  Sand is everywhere.  Like oil, it's sometimes hard to get rid of!  A grain of sand by itself has no value.  But a man can take that grain and transform it into a silicon chip, and suddenly it has value.  Another man can then take that chip and impregnate it with data, making it worth even more.  And when someone else connects that chip to a computer, it is worth quite a lot.  Multibillion-dollar companies like Intel have been built on grains of sand.  The sand, of course, remains basically worthless.  It must wait for people to give it its value." (from Discipling Nations)

(cont'd tomorrow)

Battery Day 1

Elon Musk gave his investors good news this week (on Sept.22, "Battery Day"). Some had been revealed earlier, some had not, but altogether this news will make Tesla even more attractive to car buyers.

Improvements in Tesla batteries are technical: cell design, streamlining of the factory making the cells, innovations in the anode materials, altering the cathode materials, and finally changing how the batteries would be integrated into the car. 

Also important, cobalt - a very expensive material not easily obtained - is being progressively phased out.

These innovations will result in a reduction of the cost of an EV (electric vehicle) battery . .  an amazing reduction of about 56%.

from Forbes

(cont'd tomorrow)

Upward trend 1

People of the world are wealthier and healthier by far than they were centuries or even decades ago. In the last ~30 years, global extreme poverty has been reduced by about half. It may be the best (but least reported) news ever. But it was reported in this blog years ago, as you may remember.

Hans Rosling, the charismatic Swedish statistician, created Gapminder to correct the pervasive ignorance about this phenomenal news. His bubble charts entertain as they educate.

Here's one that I've never posted before. His data was current for 2009, but ten years later the trend still continues today:


(cont'd tomorrow)